The System was extremely satisfied with the overall outcome of Jin’s intervention in the Goblin World. Not only did it gain a puppet King for the Orc Kingdom but it also established a significantly beneficial relationship with the Goblin Kingdoms.
Therefore, after the negotiations were done, it finally kept its word and allowed Jin to give Qiu Yue the rights to become a Sub System User. “About damn time I’d say, she did so much work for us.” Jin criticised as he was slouching in his home’s couch watching some online action movie while enjoying some snacks he bought from the Tiangong District. The rest of the bellators, along with Yun and Lynn were accompanying him as he had decided to call for an informal meeting beforehand. (The shop was currently handled by Another Jin and the announcers.)
“Do you think she will like eating all this junk food? I could make better ones.” Lynn asked as she happily munched on some crispy chicken flavoured popcorn.
“If she does not like any of these snacks, I volunteer to clean this up for her. My stomach craves for such food!” Peppers gleed while slurping on a large cup of coke.
“She will like them… that is if she has not changed her taste sinc- HEY PEPPERS! NO!” Jin stopped Peppers from grabbing more than what was allocated for her. That was when the System teleported a slightly weary Qiu Yue over from the Goblin World to the living room where everyone else was waiting for her.
“Erm? What’s the occasion?” Qiu Yue was famished from all the talks and the spread of food on the table was already calling out to her, luring her body like a snake being charmed by the sound of a pungi. As soon as Jin gave her an empty plate and asked her to grab a bite, she did not hesitate a single bit at all and immediately dug in. Regrettably, Yun did not allowed Qiu Yue to do so as she grabbed her by her collar and dragged Qiu Yue to the kitchen to wash her hands.
“Hand hygiene. Who knows what kind of viruses you brought back from the goblin world?” Yun said as she watched Qiu Yue washed her hands thoroughly first before permitting her to run back to the table. This time Qiu Yue grabbed two pieces of chicken wing without delay.
“Erm…okay. A few things to celebrate but mainly, it’s to officially congratulate you for getting the job done and earning the approval of the System. Today you have the chance to become a Sub System User. I wanted to throw a party for Lynn back then too..but-” Jin looked over at Lynn the moment he mentioned it.
“But I rejected him outright. I thought it was not necessary after all the time I’ve worked for him.” Lynn was blunt and harsh which made Jin feel embarrassed on the spot.
“Ah! I still remember that rejection. Jin was depressed for the whole day.” Milk had decided to add fuel to the fire as she unabashedly took a few takoyaki balls and gobbled them all at once.
“Oh…no wonder he desperately wanted to train with me on that day. I was wondering why his strikes were so unusually weak.” Zeru added nonchalantly while he nabbed a few onion rings from the snack buffet on the coffee table.
“He even failed to close the fridge door when he came back from work. If not for the System regulating the electricity, we will be incurring a few hundreds of Yuan on the bills for neglect.” Yun mentioned while chewing on a large slice of teriyaki chicken chop.
“Such a shame. Jin even had a fanciful speech prepared for the occasion. Our Master here has spent a lot of time in front of the mirror going through it. Well, time to use it now, Jin!” Kraft sniggered as he fed his foxes the Xiao Long Baos (Soup dumplings with pork meat fillings). Meanwhile, Jin was starting to resemble a tomato from all the embarrassment of the combined mental attack.
“Well, here I am, and I am not going to reject this amount of goodness. Ohhh! Cheese fries! And it’s still piping hot!! Those are my favourites!!!” Qiu Yue grabbed a few with her bare hands as she opened her mouth like a hippo and placed that bunch of fries into her mouth without any reserve. (Jin found it especially cute that her behaviour had remained the same.)
“Anyways…yeah, this is also a way to thank all of you guys for helping me this much with this whole unexpected war.” Jin smiled as he looked at each one of them in turn with an open heart of gratitude.
“System does not require thanks and is unable to process any kind of food. Any other form of compensation?” The System asked and everyone burst into laughter.
“NO WAY!! You gained the most out of the whole situation. YOU should be the one treating everyone!” Jin complained and the System projected a sad Emoticon on the TV screen before it sent a message to Qiu Yue’s phone.
The message of acceptance to be a Sub System User.
Jin then proceeded to warn Qiu Yue what to expect from accepting it and asked if she wanted to do it first before enjoying the rest of the food or after their meal. Qiu Yue immediately agreed to get it out of the way as soon as possible. Thinking too much into it would not help much with the situation either. Hence, she tapped to agree on her phone and suddenly her phone floated and shot a beam of intense light towards the top of her head.
Instead of the excruciating pain Lynn had suffered, Qiu Yue suddenly found herself resisting an invisible heavy burden that pushed her down to the ground, as if it was trying to flatten her. She tried to bear with it with her by displaying her current cultivation but it was useless. Within five short seconds, she fell to her knees and subsequently she was lying on the ground gasping for air. Yet the others could only look, they were unable to do anything to help her.
Nobody was able to interfere with the trial of a Sub System User. What seemed like seconds for Jin and the others felt like an eternity as Qiu Yue tried to withstand the invisible force tying her down to the ground. Yet after some time, just as easy as it came, it also disappeared that abruptly. The System gave the notification to Jin that the Sub System had been inserted into Qiu Yue and he could see that she was already sweating buckets on the floor from the trial.
“Good thing, you did it immediately, else you might have vomited all this tasty food. Relax a bit and enjoy it now.” Yun tried to comfort her as she and Lynn assisted Qie Yue up. Milk passed her a few pieces of tissues to wipe her sweat away and aided her to remove her jacket.
“Suddenly, I feel like Queen.” Qiu Yue said and everyone laughed and stopped being too concerned for her, while they continued to enjoy their buffet that was laid out at the coffee table. Only Jin was still kind enough to offer her a cup of root beer and advised her to cool down some more.
After the snacking, they decided to stay around at the request of Jin as he pulled out a deck of cards and they began to play Texas Poker on the dining table since there were still leftovers on the coffee table. With a tap on the phone by Yun, the dining table immediately turned into a poker table laid with premium speed felt and tens of chips appeared on the table. The felt layout gave an authentic playing surface and it helped to reduce the poker chip bouncing and those messy pots. Since they were playing for fun, Yun gave each of them a particular set of chips.
As Lynn was not too familiar with the game, Kraft decided to assist her with it. Pei eventually came out of the blessing bracelet and sat down beside Jin, though he was the only one who could see her aside from Kraft.
“I cannot project my full powers in the bracelet form. This is to protect all of you from that devilman’s mind games. Otherwise, none of you will ever win.” Pei explained as she fiddled with her fox tail a little. As Jin rarely sees Pei in her true form, he noticed that she now wore the traditional Korean Hanbok.
“Pei probably liked those traditional clothes in general huh…” Jin thought to himself as she had been appearing in various oriental sets when she was in her true form. Meanwhile, Kraft got a little disappointed upon Pei’s cruel accusation and in order to prevent any disagreement, he volunteered to be the card dealer after he taught Lynn the basics with the aid of others by giving her a dry run.
However, before the game officially started, Moloch appeared in front of them with his puppet human in a formal casino suit. He stood right beside Kraft. “The System notified me that you guys are playing a card game. I shall be the dealer instead since I’m a good to honest card mechanic compared to this crafty old fox here.” Moloch’s puppet immediately grabbed up the cards away from Kraft and threw them into a bin.
An unopened box of cards appeared magically from Moloch’s puppet hand and he took the cards out to shuffle them. The various shuffles Moloch did was so quick yet stylish which it looked so amazing that the crowd clapped as he gave the cards out.
Despite being ostracised, Kraft decided to stay for a couple game just for the fun of it. Even if he was denied playing some mind games behind the scenes, he was still going to get his petty revenge back on the entire crowd. Unsurprisingly it didn’t took long for Kraft to win a game or two because of the bluffs he made despite Moloch’s attempt to rig the game against him.
While he was unable to mess with anyone directly, Kraft was able to pick up the subtle body language from the other players. That was just the start! Upon learning their behaviours, all he needed was to insert a few of his own little psychological games and that was sufficient to upset the entire balance of the group. If the group were some high rollers strangers, they would have ordered Kraft to be killed after the game was done. It was that frustrating.
“Hahahah! Another win for me! Oh man, you guys should really train on your poker face. Especially Master. You are too easy to read.” Kraft laughed heartily as he finally decided to stay at the sidelines to watch over the rest of the games before he spoiled the fun that Jin had wanted to provide for the whole gang.
As the games went on, the chips began not to matter much, so Yun decided to make this into a more challenging game. “A chip for a glass of alcohol. Who is in for it? Whatever’s your poison, I will provide.” Yun suggested and that was when everyone became excited. Even Peppers who was technically underage was given Chu-Hai, a sort of Japanese alcoholic beverage diluted with carbonated water so that she could have the feel of being drunk.
“Who will be paying for all these premium drinks?” The System spoke out from Yun’s phone and everyone simultaneously pointed at Jin, who was already sighing in despair when the System opened its mouth.
“Fine, fine. But then everyone has to get drunk or else they are not allowed to sleep! No clarity spells!” Jin said with his eyes at Milk and Peppers. Both of them accepted willingly and they began playing with such bets.
On the other hand, being a card mechanic, Moloch had decided to spare Jin from drinking too much alcohol. After all, the shop needed someone to care for it. (Although on hindsight, Moloch had severely underestimated Yun’s capacity to handle liquor.) Should the Original Jin pass out, the Another Jin’s would also disappear.
Therefore, he purposely made the card dealing look random but it was calculated to ensure Jin was still alive and sober. The longer the games go on, the rest of the bellators and Sub System Users, aside from Yun, were getting more and more drunk that the drinks counter could be empty before sunrise.
“Hah! Four Kings!!! All of you drink and bow to the majestic prowess of this Fiery Demonic Sage Queen!” Peppers showed her hand as she matched with the dealer’s cards and everyone was growling except for one. Lynn quietly put her hand of cards down and gave Peppers a peace symbol and a wide smile.
“HAHAHAHAH! FOUR ACES!” Milk was laughing hysterically at Peppers as she pushed five cups of low alcoholic content beverage to Peppers and demanded her to drink. Peppers cried foul play at Lynn’s beginner’s luck but Milk had already begun forcing the drink into that poor little kid. Kraft could not help and chuckled as he began recording these moments with the aid of the System via one of his foxes.
“This is what a family should be. This is what the previous Panda clan masters had always aspired to have. Jin, never ever lose this. I only hope that you will have more time in the future to enjoy moments like this. Especially when trouble always has a way to find the System’s User…” Kraft solemnly thought to himself as he beamed with a broad grin, watching Peppers seizing the opportunity to drown Milk with her own alcoholic beverage in the next round.
